Screamin’ Pumpkin Spice Chips Ahoywiches!

I’m calling them Screamin’ Pumpkin Spice Chips Ahoywiches. When you can’t come up with something clever, come up with something long.

Shown above is everything you’ll need. You could swap every ingredient out for another and make some other bizarre Halloween ice cream sandwich, but if you want to do it my exact way, grab the following:

Eating something delicious was only one of my goals. The other was to make use of so many of this year’s Halloween food offerings, all at once. If this season ended without me doing something with Pumpkin Spice M&M’s, I’d be devastated. (Think I’m kidding? There’s a reason last year’s never-covered Candy Corn M&M’s are still in my kitchen cabinet. They’re the spoiled food version of a red string around my finger.)

Before I show you how to make ‘em, let’s have a closer look at the ingredients!

Breyers Blasts “Cookies & Scream” OREO ice cream: There’s nothing too Halloweeny about the ice cream, but Breyers eked by with great packaging and a neat flavor title. Besides, had this been “Halloween flavored,” it would’ve only meant “pumpkins,” or “caramel apples,” or some other nonsense that has no business in ice cream. If tomorrow made no difference, I’d love nothing more than to sprawl out on the living room floor with this, a spoon and my Curse of Chucky DVD.

(Actually, make that a spork. Sporks are secretly awesome for ice cream.)

Pumpkin Spice M&M’s: One of the hottest new candies of the 2013 season, at least judging by the amount of people who asked if I planned to review them. I run hot and cold with “pumpkin spice,” but these definitely work. Very nutmeggy, and God, they taste sophisticated. It’s the only time you’ll feel classier by eating M&M’s.

Halloween Chips Ahoy: I reviewed these during the X-E era, but it drives me crazy to ignore really good things just because I covered them years ago. The cookies only add a few orange chips, but would look at that packaging? So sleek, so hip!

I had another reason to buy the cookies. My Screamin’ Pumpkin Spice Chips Ahoywich recipe is actually a spin on Nabisco’s recipe. (Theirs involves no M&M’s, and does not necessitate the purchase of Halloween ice cream. Thus, I consider all of my edits as improvements.)

Step #1:
Sandwich a fourth of a cup of ice cream between two Chips Ahoy cookies. It’ll look like way too much ice cream when you’re measuring things out, but trust me, it’s not. You don’t want these coming out dainty. If you’re making snacks that involve this much candy, worrying about the amount of ice cream is like ordering a Diet Coke with 85 slices of pizza. Just abide by the “tomorrow is salad day” rule. You’ll be fine.

Step #2:
Roll the naked ice cream sandwiches over a bed of sprinkles. (Only loosely, so you’ll still have space for the M&M’s.) The trick with this is to do it QUICKLY. Ice cream melts fast, and it melts even faster when you treat it like Play-Doh. This is no time to be an artist.

Step #3:
Stick a bunch of M&M’s into the ice cream perimeter. Use serious finger strength to do this, or they’ll keep falling off, and your sandwiches will become soup long before you’re through. You don’t need to add a LOT of M&M’s to each sandwich, either. Just a couple. The truth is, you’re going to pop ‘em off and eat them independently anyway. Partly because it’s fun to do, but mostly because no human mouth can handle such thick sandwiches with giant frozen M&M’s acting as rooks.

Step #4:
Freeze ‘em, and be PATIENT. Your Screamin’ Pumpkin Spice Chips Ahoywiches will require 90 minute of freezer time before they’re at their best. (Freezing firms up the ice cream, obviously, but it also makes M&M’s stop acting like cautious visitors to the party.)

Step #5:
EAT.

The finished sandwiches look like something that might be available at a third grade bake sale, assuming that bake sale sold ice cream and was stationed inside a giant meat locker.

I wouldn’t have detailed this process if they weren’t worth making. They’re delicious, and Halloween really is the best time of year for obnoxiously extravagant treats.